Wild and impetuous and almost fierce by nature, he had brooded from his very boyhood upward over his real and imaginary wrongs, until the iron had so deeply pierced his soul, that he could see nothing but coldness, and hostility, and persecution in the conduct of all around him, with the exception of his old student uncle and his sweet Theresa. Ever suspecting, ever anticipating injury and insult, or at least coldness and repulsion from all with whom he was brought into contact, he actually generated in the breasts of others the feelings which he imputed to them all unjustly. Accusing the world of injustice or ere it was unjust, in the end he made it to be so indeed; and then hated it, and railed against it, for that which it had never dreamed of, but for his own fantastic waywardness.
It was unfortunate for Durzil, that the good man, into whose care he had fallen, ever of a philosophical and studious, nay, even mystic disposition, had become, since the sad fate of his beloved sister, and the early death of a yet dearer wife, so wholly visionary, so entirely given up to the wildest theorizing, the most abstruse and abstract metaphysical inquiries, that no one could have been devised less fitting for the guardian and instructor of a high-spirited, hot-headed, fiery boy than he was.
The consequence of this was, as it might have been expected, that disgusted early with the strange sorts of learning which the old man persisted in forcing into him against the grain, and discontented with the stillness and deathlike tranquillity of all around him, the boy ran away from his distasteful home, and shipped for the India voyage in a free-trader, half merchantman, half-picaroon, before he had yet attained his thirteenth year. In that wild and turbulent career, well suited to his daring and contemptuous spirit, he had, as he himself expressed it, become hardened and inured not to toils and sufferings only, but to thoughts and feelings, habits and opinions, which perhaps now could never be eradicated from his nature, of which they had become, as it were, part and parcel.
When he returned, well nigh a man in years, and quite a man in stature, and perhaps more than most men in courage, resource, coolness and audacity, old Allan, to whom he had written once or twice, apprising him that he had adopted the sea as his home and his profession, received him with a hearty welcome, and with few or no inquiries as to the period during which he had been absent.
Thereafter, he came and went as he would, unasked and unheeded. When he was ashore, the cottage by the fords of Widecomb was his home; and his increasing wealth—for he had prospered greatly in his adventurous career—added materially to the comforts of old Allan’s housekeeping. His life was, therefore, spent in strange alternations; now amid the wildest excitement—the storm, the chase, the fierce and frantic speculation, the perilous and desperate fight, the revelry, the triumph, and the booty; and now, in the calmest and most peaceful solitude, amid the sweetest pastoral scenery, and with the loveliest and most innocent companion that ever soothed the hot and eager spirit of erring and impetuous man, into almost woman’s softness.
And hence it was, perhaps, that Durzil Bras-de-fer had, as it were, two different natures—one fierce, rash, bitter, scornful, heedless of human praise or human censure, pitiless to human sorrow, reckless of human life, merciless, almost cruel—the other generous, and soft, and sympathetic, and full of every good and gentle impulse.
And it was in the latter of these only, that Theresa Allan knew him.
It must not be supposed from what I have written, that Durzil was a pirate, or a buccaneer—far from it. For though, at times, he and his comrades assumed the initiative in warfare, and smote the Spaniards and the Dutchmen, and the French unsparingly, beyond the Line, and made but small distinction between the meum and the tuum, especially if the tuum pertained to the stranger and the papist, still neither public opinion, nor their own consciences condemned them—they were regarded, as Cavendish, and Raleigh, and Drake, and Frobisher and Hawkins had been, a reign or two before, as bold, headlong adventurers; perhaps a little lawless, but on the whole, noble and daring men, and were esteemed in general rather an ornament than a disgrace to their native land.
As men are esteemed of men, such they are very apt to be or to become; and, having the repute of chivalrous spirit, of generosity and worth, no less than of dauntless courage, and rare seamanship, the adventurous free-traders of that day held themselves to be, in all respects, gentlemen, and men of honor; and holding themselves so, for the most part they became so.
It was, therefore, by no means either wonderful or an exception to a rule, that Durzil Bras-de-fer should have been such as I have described him, awake to gentle impulses, alive to good impressions, easily subject to the influences of the finest female society, and in no respect a person either from his habits, his tastes, or his profession to be rejected by men of honor, or eschewed by women of refinement.